The twist is that the religious groups that went most heavily for Romney tend to be aspirational toward coreness. Granted, the obvious impact of group pride among Mormons in Romney boosted the GOP vote among Mormons to stratospheric levels in 2012, but Mormons have become consistently strong Republicans. One reason is because, owing to their odd history, they still aspire to be seen as part of the core of America. This urge to appear normal is a major reason that so many people these days consider Mormons strange. What kind of weirdo tries to be seen as a normal middle class American white person these days? Mitt Romney may have suffered more from Americans thinking Mormons are kind of bizarre than George Romney did 44 years ago, when most Americans tried to act the way Mormons still act today.

In a different way, Baptists tend to be aspirational core Americans, too. They tend to be from somewhat down the social scale, and being Baptist is a way to avoid the snares lurking all about that could drag them down out of the middle class: drunkeness, single motherhood, and so forth. ("Other Protestant" presumably includes a lot of evangelicals, megachurch members, and generic Christians, but also, perhaps, some Congregationalists, Church of Christ, and other liberal-leaning post-Puritans.)

In contrast, elite groups who vote less heavily Republican, such as Episcopalians and Jews, tend to find aspiring to belong to the core of America déclassé.

Episcopalianism boomed in the Robber Baron era as ambitious young businessmen from various Protestant backgrounds (frequently post-Puritan) settled upon that as a consensus church to belong to, just as they joined the Republican Party. For example, famous northeastern prep boarding schools tended to have an Episcopalian tie. Episcopalians (i.e., country club Republicans) still vote moderately Republican, but less than other white Protestants. Country club Republicans could now be considered a swing vote.

Jews are kind of the anti-Mormons. While Mormons make a great effort to act like they are at the center of American life, despite being a weird new religion headquartered in an out of the way place far from the power centers of American life, many Jews put effort into feeling and acting alienated from an America over which they have, by almost all objective measures, much influence and face, by almost all historical standards, little opposition. My sense is that Jewish aspirations toward being core Americans were at their peak in the mid-20th Century, and, unsurprisingly, have since declined as they achieved that goal. The concept of diminishing marginal returns explains much in this world.

All that said, allow me to reiterate that Obama's not-insignificant decline in appeal to Jews from 2008 to 2012 remains a potentially important story that has gone almost unmentioned in all the touchdown dances in the media since the election.

Most mega-churches are similar to Saddleback Community church in Lake Forest usually high school and college graduates low on drunks and out of wedlock births. Saddleback is not like for being upper-middle class and Saddleback is Southern Baptists but is very modern. Rick Warren influenecs a lot of churches that are upper-middle class. Calvin influence and Calvimists hate teh anabapidtd like pastor Jim Wallis. Anabapists tend to be the protestant left since the reformation.

Catholics go Dem since they were influence by the medieval idea against usuary. The Dems support laws limiting interest. Also, Eastern and Oriential Orthodox influence by medieval laws against high interest. Jews think its ok to lend at interest to not their own kind maybe another influence towards the Dems.

Philip K. Dick could still remark in 1964 that he joined the Episcopalians because his third wife, Ann, was a social climber who wanted to get to know important people. The church turned in a very liberal direction by the end of the 60s, possibly because of Dick's influence.

"One reason is because, owing to their odd history, they still aspire to be seen as part of the core of America."

I don't know if it's that Mormons desire to be seen as part of the American "core." Mostly, it's that their church places a very strong emphasis on avoiding the behaviors which used to be taken more seriously by all religions - premarital sex in particular.

Conservatism is about behaving in ways which keep you from needing gov't handouts. Conservatism is inherently procreative. Both are the essence of Mormonism.

All that said, allow me to reiterate that Obama's not-insignificant decline in appeal to Jews from 2008 to 2012 remains a potentially important story that has gone almost unmentioned in all the touchdown dances in the media since the election.

Actually, there is a lesson.

A lot of people accused Obama of being anti-Israel. Now, the accusation is debatable, but it was credible enough in certain circles. A lot of people brought up Obama hanging out with anti-Jewish Muslims.

However, even with all that, more than two-thirds of the Jewish vote STILL went to Obama.

I'm not gleaning on the 10-15 point swing in the Jewish vote over four years ago, I'm gleaning on the overwhelming landslide static result at the present time.

Too, the Jewish vote is only 2% of all voters. A 15% swing within the Jewish vote only means a 0.3% swing in the total national popular vote at the hands of Jews who swung blue to red. Big whoop.

It is notable that the recent Jewish vote for Romney is at a Republican high since 1988. At 31% (I've read that elsewhere, I trust that over the JVL figure), it's not that far away from historic highs for Republicans - Reagan got 39% one year (and 31% the other), and Ike got 40%.

I see a growing minority of Jews who are disillusioned with PC. They find that the Frankfurt School cultural marxism that has been pushed by their tribe no longer serves their interests, if it ever did. Perhaps this recent election result is an indication of opinion growth in this area.

One must remember that all it will take to put those pushing PC on the back foot is significant, outspoken, Jewish minority opinion against PC. This is the only thing necessary to make the taboo no longer taboo.

Once that taboo is lifted, there is tremendous capacity for change. The status quo is creaky. It is only held in place by the most strenuous of efforts.

In my experience, the Episcopal Church has also been the synthetic default in the dialectic of two-religion marriage.

My maternal grandparents were raised Congregationalist and Salvationist (my grandmother's parents were high-ranking officers in the Salvation Army, weirdly). Guess what church they ended up joining. When my lapsed nominally-Catholic father married my therefore Episcopal mother, guess what happened then. And when a more-or-less lapsed Mormon friend was about to marry an Assyrian Christian, I don't need to tell you who was gonna consecrate that union. The list goes on...

In the market for such marriages, it probably doesn't hurt sales if you're the staid-seeming player with the most malleable theology.

The decline in Obama's share of the Jewish vote represents nothing more than his loss of the votes of Orthodox and/or older American Jews who, while staunch Democrats (and therefore Obama voters in 2008), simply could not abide the contempt and hostility he showed for Israel once he got into office. (I mean his contempt and hostility for Israel as perceived by these voters - I'm not looking to get into any debates about Israel here).

Incidentally, although Orthodox Jews are often categorized with evangelicals and traditional Catholics by mainstream conservative and GOP establishment writers, plenty of Orthodox Jews vote for Democrats consistently, even in presidential elections, and, even in this election, many of them voted for Obama, whatever misgivings they had about his attitude toward Israel. I know such people. Orthodox Jews, by and large, do not sufficiently identify with American to consider themselves part of the "social conservative" movement (although the same sex marriage issue in NY briefly got a rise out of some of them; that now seems to be past). And, to state the obvious, like less observant or nonobservant Jews, they deeply fear and distrust gentiles to the extent gentiles are themselves deeply religious.

It's my view that Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews are seriously undercounted by pollsters. Regardless, since the Orthodox birth rate is sky high, and the non-Orthodox birth rate indicates a death spiral, Jews in America will increasingly be Republican as the Orthodox overwhelmingly are. Also, note the closeness of Jews' percentage of vote for Romney to people with no religion. It must be realized that MOST Jews in America do NOT practice their religion and are not members of any synagogue. Probably about 1/3 to 1/2 of Jews are atheist/agnostic. I'm a Jewish atheist, and believe it or not, Reform synagogues are full of them!

All that said, allow me to reiterate that Obama's not-insignificant decline in appeal to Jews from 2008 to 2012 remains a potentially important story that has gone almost unmentioned in all the touchdown dances in the media since the election.

I can't believe iSteve wrote that. Jews still went almost 70% for Obama. After all the pandering the GOP has done, rear end kissing, promoting Israel's security over their own, and itching to bomb Iran, they barely managed 30% of the Jewish vote.

And to do that they had to nominate a guy who alienated much of his base, and a guy who did not appeal to those crucial swing state white votes because of his ties to Wall Street, which is a bastion of Jewish power and influence.

Just think what their share of the Jewish vote would have been if they had nominated someone who appealed to their base and did not tout the invade-the-world, invite-the-world, in-hock-to-the-world mantra. They probably would have gotten less than 20 percent of the Jewish vote, but they might have won the election with the pickup of working class whites.

Jews are too broad a category to assume that all of them are elite. Recent Russian-Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach and poor ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn are hardly elite. Most secular Jews aren't really elite either. They are middle class, perhaps upper middle class if we are generous. It is true that a disproportionate number of people in certain elite groups (e.g. media, academia, finance) are Jewish, but most American Jews either don't work in those sectors or don't have high enough positions to be movers and shakers.

Mormons have become consistently strong Republicans. One reason is because, owing to their odd history, they still aspire to be seen as part of the core of America. This urge to appear normal is a major reason that so many people these days consider Mormons strange.

Yes, I had hoped Romney might have been able to rely on his Mormon backing to stand up to the times, for "us".

But that overlooks the fact that Mormons themselves are outsiders, and so Romney wanted to become part of the in crowd, to blend in

The reason Mormons act an old-fashioned kind of "normal" isn't because we're worried about seeming weird. It's that we have our own set of values that are -relatively- free from influence by the broader culture. Thus, while everyone else tries to seem anything but white and middle class, Mormons look at the nice house with 4-6 kids and Mom at home and say, "What's wrong with that?" And the major influences in their lives are Church leaders and parents, rather than college professors and MTV, so they aren't steered from the rather natural desire to live a nice bourgeois life.

Hard to say. The gap between Episcopalians and Jews (the least GOP White group) is 21%, while the gap between Episcopalians and Baptists (the most GOP White group) is 24%. On that basis, it certainly seems appropriate to group the Episcopalians with the Jews. Certainly, from a socioeconomic standpoint, it makes sense to lump then together.

I don't know about the diminishing returns thing. What's more American than Protestants, yet if they already achieved the core, arguably more so than Jews, they have been the core longer, why haven't they even flipped to Dems like the Jews?

The absence of Sarah Palin from the GOP ticket probably increased the GOP's Jewish share. Commentary magazine had an article "Why Jews Hate Palin" (the magazine itself is right-leaning, and the author, Jennifer Rubin, does not hate Palin).

As I have noted in the past, the birthrate dominance of orthodox jews is going to change the jewish vote in a matter of a decade or two. Liberal jews skew older by significant margins (median age for secular jews is likely over 45). Orthodox jews skew younger, and ultra orthodox radically younger. Just for a sense of the disparity approx. 70% !! of orthodox women are married by the age of 25, for reform jews the corresponding number is 9%.

"Romney boosted the GOP vote among Mormons to stratospheric levels in 2012"

Pew poll reported that Romney fewer Mormon votes (78% in 2012... 80% in 2004) than George W. Bush in 2004, which seems to be just bad data because they did not conduct exit-polls in Utah or Idaho, where so many Mormons live.

Also, to answer my own question above, Pew reports "Never Attend Religious Services" at 17% of voters, and "A Few Times a Year" at 27% -- Total self-reported irreligious, then, is something around 40%, depending on how many of the "Few-Time"-ers you want to count. (This is unchanged since 2000).

Steve, what you have seen in America is a birufcation among white Christians. High IQ Christians are adopting jewish mannerisms while low IQ Christians are adopting hispanic mannerisms.

And has often been pointed out, in your own city of los angeles, the lower IQ white Christians are intermarrying and melting in to the hispanic community while at the same time the high IQ white Christians who attend the Brentwood School, Buckley, and Harvard Westlake are increasingly marrying Ashkenazi.

I was growing up in Michigan while George Romney was governor. I don't remember that much about him, but my mother had an interesting comment recently: she said that, at least as she remembers things, people in Michigan generally didn't know or care that Romney was a Mormon. It was no big secret -- it just wasn't particularly important to anybody.

Jews don't matter that much -- there is not many of them, they intermarry and disappear into the greater White population like crazy, and they don't seem to have much intellectual energy or outsider nerviness anymore.

As far as Americans becoming core Jews, what they abjure bacon and other pork products, go to Synagoges, practice male circumcision, have Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, wear the skull caps (forget what you call it) and value education?

Please. America is the land of Honey Boo Boo, Wal Mart power scooters for her mother, and dancing with the Reality has-beens. Rather, America is becoming Greater Northern Mexico, a bit Whiter, but still that is where we are at culturally.

Phillp Dick was a pain in the ass I knew of people who knew him when he live in Santa Ana in the 1970's Santa Ana was already going Mexician in the 1970's by 1980 it was 48 percent and today is 80 percent. But Dick complain about it being too clean in the 1970's.

Mike Wallace was not the Jewish pope. He did not speak for all Jews. It would not be difficult to find a white gentile spouting a crazy opinion on any particular issue. That person's opinion is not neceasarily the opinion of the whole group.

I think it's a bit simplistic to suggest that Jewish support of a given president comes down to the degree of their perceived support for Israel. While it is definitely a factor, US Jews have to live in the USA as well and have an interest in how it is run.

So much for the claim that Jews have dual loyalty. They vote in droves for the anti-Israel candidate and the Jewish owned newspaper of record is unsympathetic to Israel. The New York Times was founded by two Jewish families and is owned by their squirrelly descendants. Some of whom are Jews while some are half Jew, half Episcopalian. Some call it part of the Jewish owned media

Both groups are sadly deficient in the antisocial, dysfunctional behavioral traits that make this country so entertaining. The difference is the Mormons want gentiles to think they're Christian and the Jews don't (and I imagine they want the Mormons to stop poaching the word "gentile").

Interesting you conflate American Episcopalianism and the Robber Barons (BTW Rockefeller was a Baptist). Only 1 Ivy was traditionally Episcopalian, though by that point Congregationalist Harvard had moved somewhat left of the mainstream. The prominence of Episcopalian prep academies, St. Grottlesex et al., had less to do with confessional details than that everyone just loves the Harry Potter-style "excellence in all things" mens-sana boarding school. Also the guys in charge of those schools were the Mitt Romney throwbacks of their own WASP cohort.

The rise of Episcopalianism in America came rather late, after the founding of most Ivy League colleges.

Actually, Episcopalianism was always big in America, since colonial days, outside of New England. It was big among the non-Dutch in NY and NJ, and big among non-Quakers in the Mid-Atlantic. It was especially big in the South among the wealthier types and the planter class. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were Episcopalian.

I went through the Wikipedia list of "businessmen called robber barons" and count 4 Episcopalians--only Mellon & Morgan most people might know--out of about two dozen consensus examples. This is the table (sorry, no time to convert it for Lotus 1-2-3). Though I know you'll never admit to being wrong about your misinformed historical riff I'd be happy to learn about the American Anglican conspiracy pulling the strings during the Gay 90s, since I've somehow missed that in my reading on the subject.

Reminds me of that scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen's character visits his friend in Los Angeles and complains about how clean LA is (at a time -- the 1970s -- when New York City was particularly filthy).

The reason American Jews usually vote Democratic is that right-wing American Jews have been moving to Israel, depriving the Labour Party there of its lock on the government.

Just because they move to Israel doesn't mean they do not get to remain US citizens and vote in our elections. American Jews are democrats because Jews in America are liberal. Jews in Israel are more conservative. I wonder why.

Joseph wrote "The reason American Jews don't often vote Republican is quite simple: A large fraction of right-wing American Jews have moved to Israel, depriving the Labour Party there of its lock on the government"

The number of emigrants to Israel from the USA over last twenty years is around 30000, not a very large fraction and not nearly able to account for labor losing lock on government in Israel

Jews don't matter that much -- there is not many of them, they intermarry and disappear into the greater White population like crazy, and they don't seem to have much intellectual energy or outsider nerviness anymore.

The only real significance of the Jewish vote is as a bellwether of Jewish opinion. And for that reason, it is very important. Claiming that Jews don't have intellectual energy any more is disingenuous.

Not sure what the point is of minimizing Jewish influence. After the last few decades of extensive out-marriage, the white elite is virtually married to Jewry by blood. Who would lead the pogroms?

In contrast, elite groups who vote less heavily Republican, such as Episcopalians and Jews, tend to find aspiring to belong to the core of America déclassé .

It's the opposite, speaking as a nominal member of the elite Protestant group - "we" Ivy League Protestants and Jews consider ourselves to be the core of America, and the lower classes baggage. This is particularly true in New York.

Steve says at the the linked post the GOP traditionally gets most of its votes from people who more or less have their acts together, while the Democrats appeal most strongly to the various resentful fringes of society.

Frankly, that's wishful thinking. The most stable, prosperous and best behaved segments of American society - white protestant Midwesterners and New Englanders - have tended to be moderate to moderate liberal. The GOP attracts a lot of the disfunctional white groups who can't get their act together, like Southerners. These groups need the government to tell them how to behave so they hope the GOP will stop them from divorcing, killing their neighbors, being gay, having abortions, etc.

"Frankly, that's wishful thinking. The most stable, prosperous and best behaved segments of American society - white protestant Midwesterners and New Englanders - have tended to be moderate to moderate liberal. "

As have the most criminal elements in American society. What's the deal with that? Remember the old line, "Jews live like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans", Now, even the Episcopalians vote like Puerto Ricans. Which partly do those intrinsically disciplined groups, Hispanics and Blacks, vote for? Who keeps them from murdering, stealing, aborting etc. - or are they cool with these things?

Just think what their share of the Jewish vote would have been if they had nominated someone who appealed to their base and did not tout the invade-the-world, invite-the-world, in-hock-to-the-world mantra. They probably would have gotten less than 20 percent of the Jewish vote, but they might have won the election with the pickup of working class whites.

The Jewish vote is not important-except for Florida. But Jewish campaign money and media influence are crucial.

Republicans win 105 IQ whites. Democrats win 130 IQ whites,as surveys of people with post graduate education sure. But smart people are not part of the Core, so this inconvenient fact diminishes Steve's New Theory not a bit :)

As far as Americans becoming core Jews, what they abjure bacon and other pork products, go to Synagoges, practice male circumcision, have Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, wear the skull caps (forget what you call it) and value education?

Nice try. Nope, in their idolization of verbal acuity and embrace of cultural Marxism, cosmopolitanism, and rent-seeking business practice. And there's this awful heresy.

NB: I'm not saying Jewish culture and influence has been entirely negative, though the Coen brothers don't seem to say much good about it.

It's really pushing the limits of sanity to expect people to take seriously a man in a dress with a wig and lipstick smeared on his face. Hell, why not have our President or a Congressman visit the Chinese president for economic discussions or go to a formal UN meeting with no shirt on, leather buttless chaps, a horsetail out his ass, nipple rings and a red dyed wig in an Amy Winehouse beehive? It would be a great show of how progressive this country is becoming!

Its obscene that it is promoted as just another normal lifestyle to people's kids.

As "anonymous" noted, Episcopalianism/Anglicanism was the default mainstream religion in most of colonial America outside of New England, and had major outposts in New England as well.

The under-representation of Episcopalianism among elite universities has more to do with the fact that other sects were more enthusiastic founders of colleges in the 19th century. (especially Methodists) And the fact that many episcopalians lived in places where founding universities was not popular (the tidewater south, for example)

As a well educated conservative from a large extended Catholic family, the impulse for many Catholics to vote Democrat is ancestral memory in reaction to the nativist movement and in favor of controls against the fat cat, plutocrat of yore. You can hear the subtext when you talk to them. By and large this is a group that still believes in group rights, group responsibilities as opposed to those of the individual.

Mormon aspirations toward "coreness" probably have a lot to do with their location- with their cultural heartland out in the sparsely populated west, they are firmly on the Republican side of the "dirt gap". As they chase a normal American existence, they chase the version of it that makes most sense in a place like Utah or Idaho. Mormons elsewhere in the country then take their cues from Salt Lake City.

In contrast, American Catholics, with most of their largest, wealthiest Archdioceses in the urbanized Northeast, spent much of the latter half of the 20th century trying to assimilate as much as possible to Progressive left-liberalism- think of the Kennedys, or just about everybody who makes an appearance in Philip K. Lawler's The Faithful Departed.

Take a basic issue like fertility. Mormon Utah has perhaps the nation's highest white fertility (it's been a while since I actually checked recent numbers), yet Mormonism has no prohibition of any kind on contraceptives. Out in flyover country, having lots of kids just makes sense. In contrast, Catholicism has, at least officially, a firm and unbending position opposed to artificial contraceptives. Because most American Catholics are clustered into crowded, child-unfriendly Northeastern cities, however, few of them want to hear anything about this doctrine, so most of their priests have done them the courtesy of politely not mentioning it for the past 45 years or so.

Steve Sailer:"The rise of Episcopalianism in America came rather late, after the founding of most Ivy League colleges."

Actually, the non-Episcopal/Anglican status of most of the Ivy League unis has rather more to do with the excluded status of Dissenters in the colonial era.Anglicans could get Oxford/Cambridge trained priests.Similarly, they had no worries about sending their sons to either school.In the colonies with non-conforming majorities (Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc), things were more difficult. Harvard, for example, was founded with the express purpose of training Puritan ministers, something that was becoming increasing difficult to do in England.

For a trans-Atlantic comparison, one might compare unis like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to the Dissenting academies that existed in the UK proper from the mid-17th to the 19th centuries.Lacking access to Oxbridge, English Dissenters formed their own institutions of higher learning. Once the barriers to non-Anglicans started coming down, the academies withered away. In America, however, the Dissenting unis had the high ground, and continued to thrive.

"Republicans win 105 IQ whites. Democrats win 130 IQ whites,as surveys of people with post graduate education sure. But smart people are not part of the Core, so this inconvenient fact diminishes Steve's New Theory not a bit :)"

And you're deluded if you believe anyone with an MS in a soft field from some university has a 130 IQ. I know plenty of friends and family who were perfectly mediocre students with ~1000 SAT scores who now have an MS in Education or an MBA from a state school; those two together are a solid majority of awarded post-graduate degrees.

"So much for the claim that Jews have dual loyalty. They vote in droves for the anti-Israel candidate and the Jewish owned newspaper of record is unsympathetic to Israel."

And by what reasonable standard is Obama or the NYT "anti-Israel"? All I see them doing is toadying to Tel Aviv while making some absolutely trivial concessions every now and then to save face.

The new biography of Joseph P. Kennedy, for all his rough edges a lot more interesting than any of his kids, notes a paradox. The patriarch’s satisfaction at seeing his son elected the first Catholic president was somewhat diluted by the fact that much of the Catholic hierarchy backed the Quaker Richard Nixon. We had smart cardinals back then.

When asked during his talk at the Local Lefty Bookstore whether Kennedy was an anti-semitic, his biographer said, of course he was, but a lot less anti-semitic than the State Department.

So, you need an explanation of how Episcopalianism went from a Southeastern religion to a more Northeastern one.

I used to be Episcopalian. The denomination is currently tearing itself apart between orthodox Christianity and unitarian-universalism, with property litigation all over the place.

It's a long, interesting history and actually started with Henry VIII's decision to make the Church of the English a creature of the English State. But most recently, in the 1960's the Episcopal Church had to decide between respectability and orthodoxy. They chose the former.

It is notable that the recent Jewish vote for Romney is at a Republican high since 1988. At 31% (I've read that elsewhere, I trust that over the JVL figure), it's not that far away from historic highs for Republicans - Reagan got 39% one year (and 31% the other), and Ike got 40%.

I see a growing minority of Jews who are disillusioned with PC. They find that the Frankfurt School cultural marxism that has been pushed by their tribe no longer serves their interests, if it ever did. Perhaps this recent election result is an indication of opinion growth in this area.

One must remember that all it will take to put those pushing PC on the back foot is significant, outspoken, Jewish minority opinion against PC. This is the only thing necessary to make the taboo no longer taboo."

On the other hand, if Eisenhower - the man who commanded the allied forces that liberated the concentration camps in the west - only got 40% of the jewish vote, then perhaps that is the absolute upperbound. What would he have had to do to get more? Personally kill Hitler in a knife fight?

"Take a basic issue like fertility. Mormon Utah has perhaps the nation's highest white fertility (it's been a while since I actually checked recent numbers)"

Mormon Fertility History1850s to 1890s: ~8.0 children per woman1970s: 4.4 children per woman [Mormons in Utah only]1980s: 3.3 children per woman1990s: 3.0 children per woman2000s: 3.0 children per woman

On the other hand, if Eisenhower - the man who commanded the allied forces that liberated the concentration camps in the west - only got 40% of the jewish vote, then perhaps that is the absolute upperbound. What would he have had to do to get more? Personally kill Hitler in a knife fight?

Yes, he could have pushed the jewish s vote as high as 45%!

Of course we know today that the Red Tails defeated the entire German war machine single handed and their CO killed Hitler in that knife fight.

Mormons at the center of American life? Please! A better way to look at such a chart is by geography and class. Baptists = Southern = racial solidarity= brand-loyal Republicans (esp. w/ Obama as prez). Catholics make up a large portion of the Northern white working class and have been enticed by Republican social conservative propaganda (mostly insincere)but repulsed by Republican libertarianoid economics. It is said economics that prevents deeper inroads by Republicans into the white Catholic vote, which is the only substantial swing vote left to them (Jews, non-whites and feminist women are mostly brand-loyal Democrats).

@ Steve Sailer "So, you need an explanation of how Episcopalianism went from a Southeastern religion to a more Northeastern one."

There are two parts - one is the transition of the south to other denominations. The settlement of the "old southwest" in the mid 19th century (Alabama, Tennessee, etc) coincided with the 2nd Great awakening. The population that moved west and settled the interior was also more likely to be part of the Baptists or other revivalist groups. The tidewater elite that stayed in Charleston or Richmond was more likely to be Episcopalian. This is part of a broader story of the displacement of Tidewater elite southern culture by the inland southern culture before the civil war as the interior was settled and the cotton boom brought huge amounts of money and power to the interior. (The tidewater grew relatively poorer as tobacco farming exhausted the soil and the prices for the two crops diverged.)

Even today S. Carolina has a large Episcopal diocese (currently feuding with the central church over the theological laxness of the main episcopal church)

The other half of the story is the rise of episcopalianism as the religion of the northeastern elites in the hundred years from the civil war to the 1960's, which I am less familiar with.

The core is rural and maybe suburban. In the great American cities, this core does not exist - or is invisible. I always get a kick out of seeing a 45-year old graybeard white guy pushing around an infant in a stroller - consequence of marrying late, having kids late, or having a second marriage - an artifact of American cultural collapse.

If we look at married Jewish males, the percentage was something like 40%, same as for Eisenhower. So the decline is among the usual suspects - female and unmarried. The GOP doesn't have to figure out how to get Jews to vote for them (or any other ethnic group) - what they need is to figure out how to capture single women (and yet without promising them more Obamaphones than the other side). I say that's impossible - singe women are the gimmedat party. They love being married to Uncle Sam. He's a much better provider than the lowlife scum that they usually wind up with.

After all the pandering the GOP has done, rear end kissing, promoting Israel's security over their own, and itching to bomb Iran, they barely managed 30% of the Jewish vote.

And to do that they had to nominate a guy who alienated much of his base, and a guy who did not appeal to those crucial swing state white votes because of his ties to Wall Street, which is a bastion of Jewish power and influence.

Just think what their share of the Jewish vote would have been if they had nominated someone who appealed to their base and did not tout the invade-the-world, invite-the-world, in-hock-to-the-world mantra.

Let's set aside for the moment the fact that Romney is not in fact a member of the "invade-the-world, invite-the-world, in-hock-to-the-world" gang, while Obama very much is.

Who is this shadowy "they" you are so furious at? Close to twenty million Republicans from all fifty states participated in the primary process. They can't all have been part of some evil cabal of Wall Street Jews.

"National Acedemy of Science, Ivy League Professors - these are great proxies for 130+ IQ. They vote Demcrat, but they are not part of the Steve's New Theory.

There is no case to make whatsoever that the top 2% of the IQ distribution votes for the Republican party."

I'll tell you what's a good indicator of not being in the "top 2% of the IQ distribution": capitalizing professor when you shouldn't have, using an article in front of a proper name as in "the Steve", and misspelling an incredibly simple word such as "academy."

In any case, there's five million or so Americans with an IQ of over 130 and the two groups that your name are at most numbered in the thousands, and what's worse is that they're a very self-selected and unrepresentative sample.

You could also use NBA players as a proxy for everyone who's over 6'5" to conclude that all extremely tall people are wealthy, and it would make about as much sense.

The gap between Episcopalians and Jews (the least GOP White group) is 21%, while the gap between Episcopalians and Baptists (the most GOP White group) is 24%. On that basis, it certainly seems appropriate to group the Episcopalians with the Jews.

Damn, that's a stupid remark. Unless you really think that Jews are the yardstick by which all other people are to be measured? I've noticed before that the anti-Jewish faction bears a striking similarity in some respects to the Jewish-supremacist faction.

What matters is whether a group of people is left (as Jews unquestionably are) or right.

"Christians also, as a group, reject the practice of making one's living by stealing, which is the foundation of the modern corporatist, money-printing thief state."

But unfortunately the most devoted Christians (and Mormons), as a group, spend all their money on overseas missions and agitating for open borders to import the entire third world. I don't think there is a single branch of Christianity that has remained untouched by these tendencies.

The most sensible group in regards to immigration is probably the white middle class who "attends church a few times a year" crowd. That sort of pattern is probably a proxy for normal behavior and common sense, whereas the extremes of religiosity and atheism attract idealistic zealots.

"All that said, allow me to reiterate that Obama's not-insignificant decline in appeal to Jews from 2008 to 2012 remains a potentially important story that has gone almost unmentioned in all the touchdown dances in the media since the election."

I agree Steve, Barry's going to have a hard time getting re-elected in 2016.

It's more likely some Jewish voters were turned off not by Obama himself, but by his emerging coalition. Dislike of Israel (and, to a lesser extent, Jews) is probably one of the few things much of that coalition has in common.

Now, it's true that opposing Israel doesn't necessarily make someone anti-Jew, but in reality, the two views correlate pretty closely. In fact, most of those who oppose Israel but claim not to hate Jews are atheist, leftist, ethnic Jews themselves. Other groups (uneducated blacks, for example) don't do nuance so well.

The only reason the Democrats are still nominally pro-Israel is the lingering influence of elite Jews and old-school liberals in the party (liberals supported Israel until about the Six Day War in the late 1960s; same with blacks, who then allied themselves with anti-Western Muslims). But as the this awkward moment at the DNC demonstrated, there's not much love for Israel among the Dem base.

In contrast, a large part of the GOP base is Evangelicals who love Jews and Israel.

Looking at robber barons skews the picture - many of the robber barons were not from the elite originally and shoved their way in through various shady means - Jim Fiske was a country peddler turned stock manipulator, Astor was an immigrant fur trader, Drew was a cattle driver, etc.

The robber barons who were born prosperous and got extremely rich (Cooke, Morgan, Mellon) were Episcopalian.

A better metric for elite religion in the gilded age would be to look at the top 2000 law firm partners and bankers circa 1880 - that list would have very many Episcopalians.

2) Other Christians not in the major three groups, including self-identified Christians not affiliated with a church.

3) White people who consider themselves spiritual but not part of any organized religion, not even generic non-denominational Christianity.

4) White people in Eastern and "traditionally non-white" religions. This would include Islam whether based on ethnicity (Albanian, Bosnian) or conversion among Christian-backgrounded whites.

5) Scientologists and members of other cults not connected to Christianity. This obviously excludes Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, etc.

6) Neo-pagans, New Agers, and the like. Despite the paranoia of the Christian Right, this group is surprisingly small in both numbers and political power.

7) Other

8) Satanists. I just had to include this before someone else did. Point number 6 applies here even more. There are less than 10,000 self-proclaimed Satanists in America.

With the possible exception of groups 2 and 3, most of these are pro-Democrat. Orthodox Christians are mostly like Catholics politically, excluding Republican immigrants from the former Soviet bloc. The 51% pro-Romney figure seems a little high.

I'll tell you what's a good indicator of not being in the "top 2% of the IQ distribution": capitalizing professor when you shouldn't have, using an article in front of a proper name as in "the Steve", and misspelling an incredibly simple word such as "academy."

Not if English is not my first lnguage. How well would you do in French?

In any case, there's five million or so Americans with an IQ of over 130 and the two groups that your name are at most numbered in the thousands, and what's worse is that they're a very self-selected and unrepresentative sample.

You could also use NBA players as a proxy for everyone who's over 6'5" to conclude that all extremely tall people are wealthy, and it would make about as much sense.

Fallacious. Height is a small factor in the selection of NBA players. IQ is a large factor in the selection of NAS members and Ivy League professors.

Graduate students in the sciences and engineering from top 20 programs; physicists; Jews (average IQ 112 - much higher percentage of people above 130).

"All that said, allow me to reiterate that Obama's not-insignificant decline in appeal to Jews from 2008 to 2012 remains a potentially important story that has gone almost unmentioned in all the touchdown dances in the media since the election."

I agree Steve, Barry's going to have a hard time getting re-elected in 2016."

At the rate he's screwing up the country, even with the Media, Academia and Hollywood supporting him, he'll be doing well not to get impeached before the end of his term.

All those robber barons may have been a mixed bunch... but their sons probably mostly were sent to Episcopal-Grottlesex type schools.

Yes, the northeastern elite was Episcopal and/or post-Puritan... but what about the inland south? With the rise of the New South, did the business elite of the south come to be part of a Baptist-Methodist establishment?

I always thought Baptists were down the social scale. Then I moved to Texas. In Dallas, that pastor Robert Jeffress who says intemperate things about Obama -- I assumed he was part of some hick church, but actually he preaches at one of the largest, richest churches in Dallas (First Baptist). Baylor, the Baptist flagship, is huge -- runs one of the biggest hospitals in Dallas. Even the true fundamentalists have Dallas Theological Seminary, which is huge.

So: does the Baptist/Methodist character of the social elites in the biggest and fastest-growing cities of the high-fertility red states in the Sun Belt (Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte) have some impact on the culture and/or voting behavior of whites there, the same way that post-Puritan mental/cultural pathologies of the Greater New England elites have encouraged anti-White thinking and acting among whites up north?

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